The union representing more than 700 Ministry of Education specialist staff who work directly with children with significant learning needs has sought an injunction in court today to stop the Ministry of Education docking 10% of their pay for working to rule for a month.
NZEI Te Riu Roa union members who work as field staff (including speech language therapists, disability facilitators, physiotherapists and behaviour support specialists) and service managers voted to work only their contracted hours for a month (from 23 July), and to only work on existing cases.
Specialist staff union members voted for the partial strike to highlight the need for more investment to address long waiting lists for children, the need for more specialist staff and the extensive overtime members were doing as a result.
Conor Fraser, a speech language therapist and member of the NZEI Te Riu Roa governance group, says the Ministry should be investing in learning support specialists, not taking punitive action because they are blowing the whistle on the problem.
“It is an overreach for the Ministry to dock 10% of specialists’ pay for a month when we are doing our contracted hours. The law is clear that employers should not dock pay when a strike involves a refusal to work overtime.”
Members undertook a two-hour strike on Tuesday, 22 July, which has already seen a reduction in their pay packets, received today.
During their month of working to rule, service managers are refusing to work more than 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week and they will stop assessing requests for support.
Field staff are working a maximum of 7.6 hours a day and 38 hours per week and will not take on any new cases.